📱 MMSD School Closure & Delay Monitor

MMSD (Madison Metropolitan School District) has a well-documented pattern of being one of the last districts in Dane County to announce closures and delays — often well after families with non-flexible schedules have already had to make childcare decisions. I din't think this is unique to this school district, nor do I think this is unique to my family which is why I wanted to share this. I will build this out more so it is a mobile and desktop app for ease of use. Not everyone is comfortable running lines of code. I wasn't either. This script can be adapted to any such use (weather, frequency and or keywords). I have mine set to crawl local news sites as well because that is how we roll here. Often the local news will be first to know about delays, and/or closures before the district officially announces.

This script won't fix that policy. But it will text you (or email you) the moment the MMSD website changes or closure/delay language appears, so you're not refreshing a browser tab at 5 AM, or stuck to your phone checking three sites.

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How it works

The script polls the MMSD homepage, and local news sites every 5 minutes and does two things:

1. Page change detection — hashes the full page content on each check. If anything changes, you get an alert immediately.
2. Keyword detection — scans for words like "closed," "delay," "late start," "cancelled," etc. Sends a one-time alert the first time these appear.

Alerts go to your phone via your carrier's SMS email gateway (arrives as a text), and optionally to an email inbox too.

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Setup

1. Prerequisites

• Python 3.9+
• A Gmail account (for sending alerts via SMTP)

2. Install dependencies

pip install -r requirements.txt

3. Configure your environment

cp .env.example .env

Edit .env:

FROM_EMAIL=you@gmail.com
FROM_APP_PASSWORD=your_app_password_here
TO_SMS=6085551234@vtext.com
TO_EMAIL=                          # optional second alert destination

Setting up a Gmail App Password:
You need an App Password, not your regular Gmail password.
Google Account → Security → 2-Step Verification → App Passwords → Create one for "Mail"

Finding your carrier's SMS gateway:

Carrier	Gateway
Verizon	number@vtext.com
AT&T	number@txt.att.net
T-Mobile	number@tmomail.net
US Cellular	number@email.uscc.net

Use your full 10-digit number with no dashes: 6085551234@vtext.com

4. Run

python school_closure_monitor.py

You'll see confirmation output every cycle. Leave the terminal open, or see below for always-on options.

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Running it always-on

macOS — launchd (runs on login, auto-restarts)

Create ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.mmsdmonitor.plist:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
  "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.mmsdmonitor</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/path/to/.venv/bin/python</string>
        <string>/path/to/school_closure_monitor.py</string>
    </array>
    <key>WorkingDirectory</key>
    <string>/path/to/mmsd-monitor</string>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
    <key>KeepAlive</key>
    <true/>
    <key>StandardOutPath</key>
    <string>/path/to/mmsd-monitor/monitor.log</string>
    <key>StandardErrorPath</key>
    <string>/path/to/mmsd-monitor/monitor.log</string>
</dict>
</plist>

Load it:

launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.mmsdmonitor.plist

Linux — systemd

Create /etc/systemd/system/mmsd-monitor.service:

[Unit]
Description=MMSD School Closure Monitor
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=youruser
WorkingDirectory=/path/to/mmsd-monitor
ExecStart=/path/to/.venv/bin/python /path/to/school_closure_monitor.py
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=30

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Enable and start:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable mmsd-monitor
sudo systemctl start mmsd-monitor
sudo systemctl status mmsd-monitor

tmux (quick and easy, any platform)

tmux new-session -d -s mmsd 'python school_closure_monitor.py'
# Reattach anytime to check logs:
tmux attach -t mmsd

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State persistence

The script saves a mmsd_watch_state.json file that records:

• The hash of the last page it saw (so it doesn't re-alert on restarts)
• Whether a keyword alert has already been sent this cycle

If you want to reset alerts (e.g. start of a new school year, or after a closure has resolved), delete this file:

rm mmsd_watch_state.json

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Adapting for other districts

This script works with any school district's website — just change WATCH_URL in .env:

WATCH_URL=https://your-district-website.org

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License

MIT License

Copyright (c) [2026] [phinn markson]

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.